In Selection Mess, Paterson Dug Hole Deeper

Kirsten Gillibrand, center, with Gov. David A. Paterson at the news conference in Albany on Friday.Credit
Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times

ALBANY — When Gov. David A. Paterson began consulting with his aides about picking a replacement for Hillary Rodham Clinton, they had one overriding message: First do no harm to yourself.

The potential benefits of any choice were few and fleeting, they said. But the potential costs of mishandling it — to the governor’s stature, to his political authority and even to his election chances — were immense.

Two months later, some of Mr. Paterson’s own advisers say their worst fears have been realized. A process that they had hoped would elevate the governor, demonstrate his statesmanship and introduce him to the nation instead damaged his credibility and divided his party. Its final days were by turns intensely secretive and astoundingly public, culminating with personal attacks on Caroline Kennedy from the governor’s camp that astonished the state’s political establishment.

In the aftermath, many top Democrats and even friends of Mr. Paterson see his governorship as reeling and troublingly disorganized. They believed that this was to be his defining year, one in which he could move beyond the unusual circumstances of his ascension to high office and prove he could lead the state through a perilous fiscal crisis.

“If we have royalty, it’s the Kennedys,” said Assemblyman Peter M. Rivera, a Bronx Democrat and chairman of the Assembly’s Puerto Rican/Hispanic Task Force. “The way she was treated, the backbiting and the attacks, it was insulting,” he said, adding that the extended selection process “was reflective of individuals who are not ready for prime time” and “demeaning to a lot of people.”

Even as Mr. Paterson declared at a news conference on Friday that his selection for the Senate seat, Representative Kirsten E. Gillibrand, was “an extraordinary New Yorker” he chose after thoughtful consideration, he found himself apologizing for the process.

“In retrospect, I wish I had not showed all of you the wrestling match,” he said.

Before the governor had even announced that he had selected Ms. Gillibrand, the pick ignited turmoil within the party, especially among more liberal downstate Democrats. Representative Carolyn McCarthy, an ardent gun-control activist who was elected to Congress after her husband was killed in a gunman’s rampage on the Long Island Rail Road in 1993, said Friday that she would start raising money next week for a potential primary challenge to Ms. Gillibrand, a centrist Democrat endorsed by the National Rifle Association.

Though Mr. Paterson assembled a large crowd on the stage, it was as notable for who was absent as for who was present. The vast majority of the state’s congressional delegation stayed away, signaling how much resistance there could be to Ms. Gillibrand’s elevation. Similarly, almost none of the other top contenders for the job came.

Note was also taken of the absence of Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, a potential primary challenger to the governor who was passed over for the post. One Democratic political consultant, who requested anonymity to candidly assess the governor’s performance, said Mr. Paterson had inadvertently pulled off something staggering: alienating three of the most powerful political families in state and national politics at the same time.

“He’s managed to anger, in one fell swoop, the Kennedys, the Cuomos and the Clintons,” the consultant said, arguing that Ms. Kennedy’s family would be furious at the governor over the leaks against her, Mr. Cuomo at being passed over for the job, and Mrs. Clinton at the governor’s willingness to consider Ms. Kennedy in the first place after she endorsed Barack Obama in the presidential race last year.

“That’s a pretty good trifecta,” the consultant added. (Mr. Cuomo and Mrs. Clinton, it should be said, issued press releases on Friday effusively praising Ms. Gillibrand.)

Some basics of appointment protocol and discretion appeared to have been abandoned; Mr. Paterson talked openly, sometimes playfully about the field of candidates, frequently teasing during radio and television interviews that he had made up — or was changing — his mind.

Photo

Gov. David A Paterson and Kirsten E. Gillibrand took a telephone call from President Obama during a news conference announcing Ms. Gillibrand's appointment to the Senate on Friday. Credit
Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times

Representative McCarthy said the governor “obviously ticked off an awful lot of people.”

“He’s going to be upset with me, I understand that, but this was not done correctly,” she added of the selection process. She said that Mr. Paterson exacerbated the situation by indicating he knew whom he wanted to pick days before he revealed the choice.

“It wasn’t fair to any of the candidates who were out there,” she said.

Assemblyman Rory Lancman, a Queens Democrat, said, “The way he handled this process feeds into the perception of him lacking discipline.”

An error has occurred. Please try again later.

You are already subscribed to this email.

“A year after he came into office, the governor hasn’t made himself into the leader of our party,” he added. “When the governor himself is sending six different messages a day, it’s impossible to unify the party.”

Mr. Paterson allowed that he had been perhaps too open about his thinking over the last weeks.

“I think that I may have just, in an attempt to be as transparent as possible, publicly gone through the back and forth of my decision,” Mr. Paterson said. “If that in any way confused anyone, I was not trying to mislead anyone.”

H. Carl McCall, the former state comptroller and a Democratic candidate for governor in 2002, defended Mr. Paterson’s handling of the appointment, pointing out that Ms. Kennedy’s own uneven performance and the intense worldwide scrutiny of her bid were factors beyond the governor’s control.

“I think that to look at his governorship in the light of this situation would be terribly unfair,” said Mr. McCall.

Mr. Paterson certainly received plenty of national attention, but not the kind he wanted. “That’s No Way to Treat a Kennedy!” was the headline of The Drudge Report, while The New Republic asked in one of its blog headlines, “How Big a Clown Is David Paterson?”

In light of his recent stumbles, the question for the governor now is how diminished he has been by the process, and whether his weakness will embolden rivals and potentially prevent him from winning election in his own right next year.

Clearly, if this was to be a pivotal year, it has not begun well for the governor. The first sign of trouble seemed to be in his State of the State speech Jan. 7, an annual address that opens the legislative session and sets the tone for the entire year.

Despite clocking in at more than an hour long — no easy task, given that the governor is legally blind and must memorize his speeches — Mr. Paterson offered few new ideas. In a year when the state faces a $15 billion deficit, his signature proposal was to tax nondiet sodas and ban trans fats in restaurants, steps borrowed from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and the state of California. The day after the speech, after it was pilloried by some editorial boards, Mr. Paterson was himself making excuses for it, explaining that he had felt dizzy and ill.

The governor’s efforts to jump-start the budget process — by releasing his own spending plan early — seem to have generated little momentum, too. Some wonder if, months after the departure of his top aide Charles O’Byrne, who resigned after it was revealed he had failed to pay taxes, Mr. Paterson still does not have steady hands around him to help him lead.

Still, some of his allies maintain confidence in the governor, and point out that he is often underestimated.

Asked whether Mr. Paterson would be able to reassert himself and bring the party behind his choice by next year, June O’Neill, the state Democratic chairwoman, said she was not worried.

“There’s a long time between now and the next election in 2010,” Ms. O’Neill said. “It’s a lifetime in politics.”

A version of this news analysis appears in print on , on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: In Selection Mess, Paterson Dug Hole Deeper. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe